Sunday, February 8, 2009

Standing room only for Plutonic meeting

Dan MacLennanCourier-IslanderWednesday, February 04, 2009

It was standing room only to hear first-hand about Plutonic Power's plansfor Bute Inlet Mondaynight.-1acf-417f-ac0c-192ad0df93e0/crowdfeb4isl.jpg?size=l>CREDIT: Photo: Dan MacLennan It was standing room only to hear first-hand about Plutonic Power'splans for Bute Inlet Monday night.

A standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 people packed the Quinsam Centrehall Monday night; their numbers clearly demonstrating local interest andconcern for Plutonic Power's massive Bute Inlet Hydro Electric Project;their comments reflecting another debate between jobs and the environment.

Vancouver-based Plutonic and its partner General Electric want to generate1,027 megawatts - enough to power 300,000 homes they claim - by building 17run-of-river generating plants on tributaries to the Homathco, Southgate andOrford Rivers.

The proposal is massive not only in scope but also in cost. Plutonic CEODonald McInnes said it will cover 1,540 hectares (3,711 acres), requiring440 kilometres (275 miles) of transmission line right-of-way as well asaccess roads. He estimated the total cost of the project in the $3.5 billionrange.

After responding last November to BC Hydro's request for power proposals,Plutonic is now in the early stages of federal and provincial environmentalassessment processes. Monday's meeting was the third after meetings lastmonth in Powell River and Sechelt intended to help the EnvironmentalAssessment Office set terms of reference for the assessment.

A majority of speakers voiced serious concerns about the proposal if notoutright opposition to the concept. Strathcona Regional District Area CDirector Jim Abram called for more meetings and voiced "deep concerns"about the proposal and the process. He said consultation with localgovernment to date was "pathetic" and he called for more public meetings.

"How can you propose a 450-kilometre-long linear clear cut in an area thatdepends on the scenic corridor for the livelihood of its residents and thevery existence of the creatures that live there," he said. "This isunimaginable."

The meeting also drew some of the now familiar opponents from the provincialstage. Rafe Mair from the Save Our Rivers Society said the process wasbackwards because the people had yet to vote on an energy policy. Perennialeco-warrior Vicky Husband, senior advisor to the Watershed Watch SalmonSociety, said public meetings should have been offered in Victoria andVancouver because this is a matter of provincial concern.

But most of the speakers were local.

"I'm not in favor of these projects," said Mike Gage, chair of the CampbellRiver Salmon Foundation. "You talk about rehabilitating logging roads. Yourplans are to bring standards from 150-tonne capacity to 300-tonne. That'snot rehabilitating, that's a major rebuild. Your standards are going toleave huge impacts on those valleys."

Others wanted to know how much water would be diverted for generationpurposes and how far it would be diverted.

There were numerous concerns about visual impacts. McInnes said the waterlicense would not permit export of water.

North Island MLA Claire Trevena called for a moratorium on independent powerproduction (IPP) until there's an overview of its provincial impacts.

Fresh off the federal campaign trail, Quadra's Green Party candidate PhilipStone climbed on for the coming provincial vote, telling McInnes the projectwas anything but green.

But amid all the opposition ran a current of support from no small number inthe audience, including First Nations members.

Daisy Hill, 72, of the Homalco First Nation, lectured the audience, sayingthe land involved had belonged to her people for generations.

"For a change, we thought that we were going to be able to get something forour land from this Plutonic Power because there were supposed to be jobs andother things happening for us," she said. "Our people are really in povertyand this was an opportunity for them to finally get out of being so poor andhave jobs and training. We were very happy to hear something positive wasgoing to happen for us.

"Then I come here and I hear all of these negative things from everybody.You people probably have had jobs all your lives, have your own homes, haveeverything that you need. We don't have anything.People, the majority are on welfare. It's sad to say that.

"Maybe there are some things that need to be explored so that they don'thurt the water and they don't hurt the animals. We want to make sure thatdoesn't happen because we value those things."

Mavis Kok said Plutonic's Toba Inlet project currently under constructionhas been good for the Klahoose First Nation.

"This has been a positive endeavor for us," she said. "We have over twodozen people attending college and university. That is the upside of it.There's always going to be pros and cons. There's always going to besomebody that disagrees, but from this standpoint I say thank you toPlutonic Power."

Lannie Keller said the public can't be the watchdog for the process becausethere's a flood of proposals.

She called for the province to call a moratorium. She said the Homalco haveworked hard to protect the environment.

"It's a shame on our society that they have to consider trading their riversand their environment for money so that their youth can go to school and sothey can have jobs," she said. "It's shameful. We don't need to sell ourrivers. We've used up our forests. Our salmon are gone.Let's not sell out our rivers."

"Our general guiding principle on site selection is the avoidance of fishhabitat," he said. "All of our powerhouse sites are above confirmed salmonhabitat. The intake structures are way above any productive salmon habitat.Where possible, we're just looking for the environment where there isn'tproductive fish habitat at all."

He urged people to check out the company website at www.plutonic.ca for moreinformation.

After the meeting, McInnes said he hadn't heard a lot of opposition to theproposal from the community.

"The majority of the people who are here tonight that were being vocal,they're never going to change their opinion," he said. "To a large extent,their opposition to the project has nothing to do with the project. It's theconcept of public versus private ownership.Ideologically, a lot of people think we shouldn't have the right to developand a lot of people think it's fine. But the people who think it's fine,they're not at this meeting. They're at home after a hard day at work,having dinner and seeing their kids."

He said many in the audience had "followed us to the other meetings so thatthey can stand up in a public forum and try to get people riled up."

How riled up people will become has yet be demonstrated, but that date couldcome later this year when Plutonic formally applies for an EnvironmentalAssessment Certificate, possibly by September. That will trigger a largerpublic consultation process and more public meetings.

Recommendations to government from the environmental assessment processesaren't expected until sometime next year.